A Touch of Notoriety(51)

Quite what she was supposed to do as Gabriela Navarro, Beth had no idea, never having had any dealings with heiresses, Argentinian or otherwise. But she had a feeling that it would involve hours and hours of shopping for suitable clothes, so that she could be taken out to suitable parties and dinner parties, and be introduced to suitable people. People as rich and privileged as the Navarro family.

All of which sounded like total misery to Beth.

At the same time as she knew she owed it to Esther and Carlos, her real parents, to at least try to fit into their world. To try to become their daughter again. Even if it was the last thing she felt like doing.

The first thing she felt like doing was getting as far away from Raphael Cordoba, and those humiliating memories of last night, as she possibly could!

And instead she was now going to spend hours and hours on a plane with him, suffering in silence while he continued to ignore her...

‘I was not talking down to you—’

‘It certainly sounded like it to me,’ she came back determinedly. ‘And from the little I know about your own situation, you appear to have walked out on your own family years ago, and never looked back!’

‘That is not true.’ A nerve pulsed in Raphael’s tightly clenched jaw. ‘I see all of my sisters whenever my other responsibilities allow.’

‘Which doesn’t appear to be very often,’ Beth scorned. ‘And you don’t see your father at all. Why is that, Raphael?’

Raphael was beginning to wish he hadn’t told Beth anything about his family. Most especially of the strained relationship that now existed between himself and his father.

‘Or is it your stepmother you’re avoiding?’ Beth prompted astutely. ‘Maybe because you begrudge your father the happiness of a second marriage?’

‘My father’s second marriage ended some years ago,’ Raphael bit out tautly. ‘And the only thing I begrudged was having his young wife make sexual advances to me—’ Raphael broke off abruptly as he realised his anger had made him say far too much. Reveal far too much. ‘It is time I—’

‘Your stepmother made sexual advances to you?’ Beth repeated incredulously.

Raphael easily read the all-too-familiar tenacity of Beth’s expression. ‘Yes,’ he hissed.

‘She tried to seduce you? Even though she was married to your father?’

‘I think “seduce” is too polite a word for what Margarita intended in regard to her stepson, from the age of sixteen to nineteen, every time he returned for the school holidays,’ he drawled scathingly.

‘You were only sixteen when she first tried to seduce you?’ Beth’s eyes were wide. ‘Why didn’t you tell your father what was happening? Explain the situation to him and—’

‘And what, Beth?’ Raphael moved away impatiently. ‘Expect that he would believe my word for what had happened over the word of the young and beautiful wife with whom he was totally besotted?’ He eyed her mockingly.

‘Your father knew about her—her sexual interest in you?’

‘He eventually knew Margarita’s version of things, yes,’ Raphael bit out flatly.

‘How?’

‘You really do not want to know—’

‘Yes. Yes, I really do, Raphael.’ Beth nodded determinedly.

He sighed his impatience with her stubbornness. ‘Remember that you were the one who asked me to tell you this,’ he warned harshly as he drew in a deep breath before speaking again. ‘I was out in the stables one day and she came into the stall where I was working, unbuttoning her blouse as she did so, revealing that she wore nothing beneath. I told her—as I had told her so many times before—that I was not interested in her in that way. She left her blouse partway unbuttoned and came towards me, her intentions obvious in her gaze and the lascivious expression on her face.’ Raphael’s own expression was bleak as he remembered the day that had changed his life for ever. ‘I was too busy trying to fend off her attentions to realise that someone else had entered the stables, but apparently Margarita was not. To my surprise she suddenly pulled away from me and began screaming as she started pulling and tearing her blouse. By the time my father had hurried to the stall where we both were, Margarita had mussed her hair into a tangled mess and ripped several buttons from her blouse, the material itself gaping open to reveal her bared breasts.’

‘Giving your father the impression that you had attacked her...’